


a perfect sonnet

by cakecakecake



Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Bad Flirting, Bad Jokes, Bonding, Boss Bitch Nicoletta Goldstein, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Poetry Nerds, Protect and Love V, Tattoos, Teasing, V Wears A Corset, William Blake - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 02:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18273905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cakecakecake/pseuds/cakecakecake
Summary: nico patches up v.





	a perfect sonnet

**Author's Note:**

> i read in nico's character notes that the tattoo on her ribs is a william blake poem and i went off the handle and wrote this absolute nonsense

He’s lighter than she would have thought.

Sure, Nico had already guessed he couldn’t have weighed more than she does -- she can probably bench-press a fella twice his size at her best, but actually lifting the guy is a bewildering feeling regardless. Just about as easy as carrying a baby, or a very fat cat. (Definitely easier than carrying Nero.)

He'd sounded no more gravelly on the phone than usual. "I could use a hand," he'd croaked. When she crash landed the van into the rubble and eroded earth and rolled down the driver’s window, it was no cause for alarm to see him clinging to his cane like his anchor to this plane of existence -- that’s just V. But when she'd spotted the gash on his bicep spouting a fountain of blood, she practically leapt from her seat, flailing her arms around in a panic until she could grip him by his good shoulder and waist and swing him into a safe embrace. 

He barely makes a sound as she carries him bridal style into the van, only making her frenzied word-vomit projectile even faster. “You’re alright, you’re alright honey, I gotcha, I gotcha,” she squeals, over and over and he rolls his eyes despite the draining of what little color is in his face. She heaves him onto the old couch in the back, laying him straight before moving to the cabinets.

“I got just the thing, you leave it to me now,” she assures him, although he doesn’t look panicked so much as tired, exhausted, _spent_. She pulls out green bottles with red crosses etched across the labels and a roll of thick gauze and hurries back to him, nudging his good shoulder.

“Alrighty, come on, come on now V, upsy-daisy -- "

He tries to hoist himself up, but as soon as Nico notices how badly he’s struggling, she steadies him upright herself, muttering comforting (and hopefully not annoying) shushes and hushes. To her surprise, he allows it, submitting to her supportive touches, his eyes falling shut as she starts to work at his arm. She uses an old rag soak up most of the blood, putting pressure on it as his head lolls onto his shoulder, his chest rising and falling rapidly. Nico watches him with caution, brows furrowed -- he makes a hell of a lot less of a fuss than Nero’s whiny ass, but somehow the way he just grimaces through the pain is ten times more stressful.

“Hold that right there a minute.” She stays his hand on the towel and leans over him, reaching for a fresh one in the overhead cabinet behind his head with her waist level with his eyes. He turns his head, his nose barely gracing her soft stomach as he starts to murmur something, seemingly to himself.

“‘He who binds to himself a joy, does the winged life destroy’...”

Oh, _Savior_. Poetry, really? Okay, sure, he’s not whining through the agony, but if she had to choose between that and THIS, she’s not sure which she’d rather endure. Huffing and puffing, she ducks her head back out of between the shelves and whips out a clean terry-cloth.

“Honey look, if reciting poetry is your way of coping, I get it, but if I’m gonna patch you up right, you gotta let me concentrate -- "

“Your tattoo.” He says it meekly, drawing his eyes up to her face at last, expression unreadable.

_Oh_ , she thinks, caught off-guard. And then she says it out loud. “Oh.” (She almost can’t help a grin.) “Yeah. Good old Blake. I shoulda figured you’d recognize it.”

He stops looking at her then, eyes on his soaked towel instead. “Why that one?” 

“Huh?”

“‘Eternity.’ Something about it must speak to you.”

“O-oh, w-well, um,” she stammers as it quickly dawns on her -- no one’s ever asked her that before. When it comes to her tattoos, that’s the last one that gets folks' attention. They’d rather try to find out how far down the barrels go instead and frankly, she can’t blame them. She shrugs, biting back a smile as she spritzes the cloth with a healing spray. “Ain’t nothin’ special really. I came across it goin’ through my gram’s old things and sorta just -- liked what I took out of it so much, I wanted it to be a part of me. Guess it makes me feel closer to her somehow.” 

“Your ‘kiss to the joy as it flies’.” 

Nico tilts her head, reaching gingerly for the stained towel as their hands brush for a brief moment. Against her rougher, calloused palms, his unfairly soft hands are much warmer than she would have expected. Silly of her, probably, but she'd imagined him to feel as cold as he came off. It’s startling, but for once, she’s glad to be wrong. She presses the clean cloth to his wound, unable to resist teasing him.

“That’s a dreamy way of puttin’ it. You hidin’ a romantic side under that little black corset, V?”

It’s her turn to make him stammer and funny enough, he does. A remarkably endearing flush of crimson graces the tips of his ears, just visible enough behind his nest of feathery hair. “I don’t -- I hadn’t meant it as such…”

Of course he hadn’t, weaselly little rat bastard he is. Nico grins, toothy and wide. “Relax, honey, I’m just playin’ with ya.” She knows his type; the kind of guy who’s completely oblivious to any emotion outside of whatever’s bottled up in the tiny vial around his neck. Poor thing probably wouldn’t know a come-on if it chained him by the wrists and pinned him to a wall. _Sheesh_ , now that’s an oddly specific analogy -- she sure as hell hopes mind-reading isn’t among his cryptic wizard-y talents. 

“You know, you’re almost chatty without that bastard bird-brain hangin’ around -- think this is the most I’ve ever heard you talk," she goes on, keeping the kittenish lilt in her voice just for the fuck of it. The darker part of her wants to see if he can actually pick up on it or if he’s really just as clueless as she thinks. 

There's a slight tug on the corner of his mouth. “Maybe you just haven’t been listening.” 

“You’re gonna be a smart aleck when I got the stinging-hurty juice right here in my hand, really?” She gives his bicep a generous squeeze and he winces.

“Is that much pressure really necessary?”

“I gotta give you a good squeeze if you wanna stop bleedin’ so much,” she says, cheeky. “Here, come on, raise your arm, lemme hold it there a minute.”

With reluctance, V lets her lift his arm straight up and she eases the pressure on the wound.

“What’s the point of this?” he groans -- she makes to sit down next to him, keeping his arm elevated. Her knee bumps against his, bare thigh touching the soft fabric of his pants -- she clears her throat, wondering if he can feel it too, the warmth at their points of contact. She clears her throat, keeping her voice even.

“Hold a wound above your heart if you can, helps slow down the blood flow.”

“I can’t imagine it helps if my heart is racing.”

Nico short-stops on a gasping intake of breath, blinking back at him as she catches a glint of something she can’t place in his dark eyes. What in the goddamn -- ?

Now if she didn’t know any better, she would have thought this were an innocent, unwitting medically-related comment about his post-battle rush of excitement. But Nico being Nico, she _does_ know better and she _does_ notice the way he holds her gaze, as if daring her to break the stare first. Now, she could let her eyes fall to the dip at the base of his throat, where the sensitive skin is stretched just thinly enough to notice a flutter in his pulse, but she won't. She can't let him think that _she_ thinks he's flirting (because he's not, come on, it's _V_ ). But the dilation in his pupils and his stuttering breathing pattern is -- disconcerting, impossible to ignore, especially this close. But -- but, wouldn't he have said "still racing" if he were referring to waning adrenaline? A body as fragile as his probably has a harder time cooling down, sure, but. But. That pout and that grovel in his voice make it really hard to resist affection. So the hell with it -- she bats her eyes.

“What, playing doctor with little old me got you all excited?” 

“Forgive me, but touching my arm isn't quite enough to get me excited." 

_Ah, there we go, now that just would have been too easy._ She bites the inner of her cheek, letting herself giggle as she guides his free hand to hold the cloth there, making a point to rub along his wrist before letting him go. Brazen talk for someone whose pulse is still thrumming, she thinks, but she needs to stay focused -- she might have stitches to make, she can’t very well start bickering with him. If that comment before _was_ his piss-poor attempt at flirting, though, she can admit it was charming. Overtly cheesy, but adorable in the dorky sort of fashion that she likes. 

“Alright, lemme see now,” she tells him, sticking a needle between her teeth as she unravels some gauze. “Might be clean enough to tell if we’re gonna need to sew you up.” 

V rests his arm, smoothing the cloth over the gash -- still bleeding, but only a bit, and slowly. Definitely doesn’t appear to be as garish as she first thought -- not deep enough to warrant stitches, lucky him. 

“Shoot, she ain’t pretty, but I think wrappin’ her up will do just fine.” 

He doesn’t say anything while she bandages him up, just stares ahead and out the window, blinking slowly in the light of the setting sun seeping into the van. His breathing slows, although now and again she’ll notice a bob in his throat as he swallows when her fingers grace his chest or his waist. She’s not really privy to where she puts her hands; she’s so used to roaming them about when she’s working, but V seems acutely aware of his physical proximity to nearly everything -- which is why it’s so strange to her, that he’s not contorting into himself to hide like a frightened bird. 

“Sorry,” she apologizes anyway, sincere and soft. “Don’t mean to have my fingers flying all over the place -- "

“It’s fine,” he says quietly, hoarsely, like it’s almost hard for him to say. “I don’t mind it.”

Another smile tugs at her lips as she seals the bandage, purposefully sliding her hands down the length of his arm. She catches his eye, peering at her down the length of his nose.

“Welp, you’re good as new.”

“My thanks, Nico.” V makes an attempt to stand, but she practically pins him back down.

“Nah ah ah! You sit your ass right back down, Gerard Way, you ain’t goin’ back out there yet, not on my watch -- "

“I have the shadows to carry me, I must press on,” he mutters impatiently, although he doesn’t look to be that determined. Maybe it’s just the violet grooves beneath his eyes, but for the short hours she’s known him, he’s never looked more reluctant to get moving. He couldn’t possibly be... _no, no, shut up, don’t even,_ she scold herself. Nico feels a furious, burning blush creeping up her neck and dives back into the cabinet behind him to hide in search of a blanket and cushion.

“You go back out there before catching some z’s and you’ll come back reading your last will and testament instead of them fancy Blake poems,” she squawks, pulling out the fleece. She ducks out of the cabinet and almost lets out a shriek when she feels something against her back. 

V’s gotten up, leaning onto his cane, but still standing. Nico almost falls onto the couch, but steadies herself, pinned between his figure and the overhead cabinet. Her grip slips from the compartment door and ghosts over his good arm, the one gripping his cane, and she tries not to think too hard about the way he’s not flinching away from her. 

Forehead creasing, she reaches for his tended wound, fingers skimming over the white gauze and then trailing the swirls of dark ink beneath it. She could say it more plainly: “I’m worried about you,” but when have the men she’s known ever taken kindly to hearing that phrase? They don’t want her concern. They _need_ it; graces know they don’t have any for themselves -- but they don’t like hearing it. It only makes it all worse. Nero told her that once, and it’s never left her. But V doesn’t look at her the way Nero does. 

Nero gets that Look when he’s made up his mind, like most men do -- when he knows exactly what he’s going to do and he doesn’t wait for permission or advice, but V doesn’t share that. There’s no fire, no defiant smile. It’s not determination or stubbornness or persistence. There is no pride in whatever it is he must do (or thinks he must do). There is only a shadow, crossing the depths of murky green in his eyes, and the only thing that could possibly draw it away lies at the bottom of the Qliphoth. 

“‘For the gentle wind does move, silently, invisibly’....” 

Nico lifts her head, edging only an inch closer as she's struck with a shock of nostalgia -- she knows this one, too. She bookmarked it as a child, recalling the dog-eared pages and acrylic-stained pages. The next lines come to her easily.

“‘I told my love, I told her all my heart...trembling, cold, in ghastly fears’ -- "

He doesn't move any closer. Keeping but a short, frustrating distance, V looks affectionately down at her, in the closest to a smile she's ever seen on him.

“‘Ah, she did depart.’”

Never in a hundred years would she have expected something like a goodbye kiss -- especially not from him, not V, the absolute enigma of a man. If he even was truly a man at all. But to say she didn't want it was a far cry from the truth, if only help her feel a little less lonely, a little more appreciated. A little more like there was a light at the end of this spiraling tunnel she was stuck in with the rest of this crazy bunch. And alright, if she's being honest, he's growing on her a little too. No shame in admitting he's pretty -- plus she's sure Nero would be jealous, and that thought is even more delightful. So she grins up at him, cants her head to the side and gives him a knowing wink.

"Well. You have any more trouble, you just call me."

"Three rings," he says, and she laughs. He knows. So help her, he knows.


End file.
